A whopping 75% support among the general public according to new polling by The Washington Post & ABC News. Combined with the recently released study by retired military officers that “allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly is unlikely to pose any significant risk to morale, good order, discipline or cohesion”, and we’re seeing a seismic shift in public attitudes that DADT simply cannot hope to withstand much longer. God willing, gays & lesbians will be able to freely and openly serve in the military one day soon…

…because it doesn’t “mirror” Obama’s. Media bias? What media bias? Here is the text of McCain’s column that was rejected, courtesy of The Drudge Report:

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation â€œhardâ€ but not â€œhopeless.â€ Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,â€ he said on January 10, 2007. â€œIn fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that â€œour troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.â€ But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, â€œIraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.â€ Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr Cityâ€”actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his â€œplan for Iraqâ€ in advance of his first â€œfact findingâ€ trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military’s readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five â€œsurgeâ€ brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his â€œplan for Iraq.â€ Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be â€œvery dangerous.â€

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the â€œMission Accomplishedâ€ banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the warâ€”only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

This partisan hack of an editor is dreaming if he seriously thinks the Times has the influence and control it once held. Thanks to new outlets like Drudge and blogs, what used to be buried by a deliberate news blackout still gets out.

On behalf of the millions of regular airline business travelers, this is a memo to all of you “sometimes travelers” in the airports lately:

Now hear this!Â Â Â First and most important, the airport terminals are not shopping malls.Â Â Casually strolling in the middle of the walkway areas is not welcome by those of us trying to get somewhere.Â Move your ass!

Second (and related) –Â to those of you traveling together:Â Airport terminals are not for line-dancing tryouts.Â Â STOP walking shoulder-to-shoulder.Â You are blocking everyone else from getting past you.Â Get a clue.

ToÂ you parents with kids:Â Keep them by your sides and under control so they don’t make the airport terminals an ever-changing obstacle course.

Finally, since the airlines are charging a lot for this, that and the other thing now — why don’t y’all just stay home until fuel prices go down a bit.Â Do us all a favor and help reduce your personal carbon footprint.